59 Minutes (23 page)

With that she was off.

I have no idea why she changed her mind. I didn’t
utter a word during her monologue. Maybe she just needed someone to listen.
Maybe I look sympathetic. Maybe her money problems made her act a little
irrationally. Although if she had such worries she never mentioned them. I
didn’t care. This was the in I needed and the fact it didn’t involve breaking
and entering was good news.

I was outside the shop before
five thirty
. I wanted
to check that I wasn’t being set up. It had occurred to me, while lying on the
hotel bed, that maybe she had decided to phone her boss and tell him about our
little chat.

Two people entered and left as I looked on. Both
looked like customers and, unless someone was hiding in the back shop, Maria
seemed to be on her own.

I walked into the shop at six on the dot.

Maria smiled and gently nodded her head up and to the
left. I put on my ‘what the…’ face and she did it again. I looked over and
realised she was motioning towards the CCTV. I nodded and told her I wanted
access to my box. She clicked the little gate that led to the box room door. I
punched in my code and the door opened. I walked in.

Once inside the box room I looked round but there was
no sign of a CCTV - but given the size of cameras nowadays that meant nothing.
I assumed that there was none. I couldn’t see anyone being too happy at being
watched as they deposited and withdrew from the boxes. The few Mallorca
Security customers that I had seen didn’t seem the kind to take well to such
intrusion.

To keep up appearances I retrieved my box and retired
to one of the three small booths.

The booths looked like voting booths, even down to the
small drawn curtain and shelf where you would have marked your X on the voting
slip. It occurred to me that they may well be second hand voting booths - it
would fit with the Mallorca Security cost ethic.

I heard the door open behind me, followed by the soft
whoosh of cloth opening and a voice came from the booth next to mine.

‘Give me the code.’

I told her and she left. A few seconds later and she
returned, holding a box. I was surprised at how quickly she had found it. After
all the only thing I had was the code and there were a lot of boxes in the room
to check. I took it and laid it next to my own and lifted the lid.

My mouth dropped open.

A single sheet of paper lay in the bottom of the box.
Written large in flowery script were the words:

‘Bonjour.
Vous êtes mort
.’

I knew next to fuck all French but I recognised the
word for dead. Jesus this was a set up. Either that or an elaborate joke. I
closed the box and left the booth. Maria looked at me and I knew she was
wondering why I didn’t return the boxes to their homes. The reason was simple.
If this was a set up I needed to get the fuck out of this place with speed.

As I slammed open the door leading to the front shop I
saw two men standing at the entrance door. Both were looking directly at me. As
soon as I appeared they stepped forward. I weighed up the option to charge
them, but they were bruisers and focussed on me. Dupree’s men. I jumped back
into the room and pulled the door shut. I heard the lock click and could only
hope they didn’t have the access code. I turned to Maria.

‘Is there another way out?’

‘Why?’

‘There are two men about to break down that door and
they don’t want to talk to me about the weather.’

She surprised me by running past me towards the door.
I thought she was going to open it. Instead, she slammed her hand on a small
red button on the wall. I heard a click and then an alarm went off.

‘They won’t be able to get in. The alarm changes the
code.’

‘How do we get out?’

‘We don’t. We wait on the police.’

‘The police. I don’t want the police.’

‘What else would you have me do?’

She tilted her head towards the ceiling.

I looked up and spotted a tiny camera - almost hidden
from view. I realised that I had gone into thick mode. She was acting exactly
as she should have in the situation.

A customer had just told her he was under attack and
she had hit the alarm. If someone was recording this, then her actions wouldn’t
look out of place; she was one smart cookie.

I had no choice but to wait for the police to arrive,
and they did within minutes. I heard rapping on the door and a splash of
Spanish. Maria responded and unlocked the door.

Two policemen stood in the doorway. Maria went all
talk, talk, talk and I was ushered out of the room. Once they had established I
couldn’t speak Spanish one of them told me, in broken English, to sit on a
chair. When they were finished with Maria she came over with them and acted as
translator.

‘Just tell them what happened,’ she said.

I kept it simple and didn’t embellish. I told them
that I had seen the two men advance towards me and panicked. They asked if I
had any reason to think they would attack me. I told them that I didn’t. The questioning
turned to who I was, where I was staying and so on. The conversation was
shorter than I expected and, after a few minutes more with Maria on her own,
they left.

‘You should go now. My boss will be here. The alarm
goes to his mobile phone.’

She was whispering. Christ the place was bugged for
sound as well.

‘Will he know you let me see the other box?’ I
whispered back.

‘I will quit before he finds this out. Now go.’

I got up and, with a thank-you, I left.

Outside I scanned the road and pavements. I was
certain that the two men would be waiting. It was just a matter of where.

I headed away from my hotel. My head was in a flat
spin. None of this made sense. Why would Dupree set me up? Why had the men not
lifted me before I went to the shop? It was hardly the best place to grab
someone. Had Dupree conned Martin and Spencer into helping or had he threatened
them? If so, to what end? Why the hell lead me to
Spain
? More
questions than answers.

I turned into the first street and then left into the
next. The road headed up a hill and under a bridge. I walked quickly and as I
passed under the bridge I looked back and saw the two men less than fifty yards
behind me. I hit the gas pedal and sprinted up the incline.

At the top, the street opened into a wide boulevard
peppered with shops. There were some shoppers around but probably not enough to
worry my pursuers.

I ran across the boulevard and saw a small lane on my
left. It was roofed in and I dived into it - hoping it wasn’t a dead end. I
slowed to a jog - there was no way I could keep a sprint on. Then I had an
idea. Not a good one, but an idea.

I exited onto another road and turned in the direction
of my hotel. I checked behind and the two men tumbled out behind me. I moved
back to a jog.

After a couple of hundred yards I slowed to a quick
walk as I was running out of breath again. A glance behind and the two men were
also walking. At the next corner I walked out of view and then, grabbing energy
from somewhere, I ran, sprinted for thirty yards and dived into a small gap
between a house and a factory.

There was a wall about five feet high at the end of
the gap and I jumped over it and into a small courtyard. A quick scan and I
could see there was no way out, save through a series of what looked like back
doors.

I slumped behind the wall, counted to thirty and then
looked back over the wall. I could see maybe two yards of pavement from where I
was and there was no sign of the pursuers. I jumped back into the small alley
and slowly walked up to where the pavement started.

I poked my head around and looked to the left. About
twenty yards away the two men were gazing around, one of them was on the phone
- I ducked back in. I waited for another count of thirty and looked out. The
men were gone. I exited the gap and ran to my right and hit the road that the
hotel lay in.

If there were others waiting at my hotel I was screwed
but there was fuck all I could do about that.

I hit the lobby at a flat spin and raced up the stairs
to my room. Two minutes later and I was back on the street, suitcase in hand. I
thanked God that I had kept it packed and ready to go.

I pulled the car keys from my pocket. The car was
parked at the end of the hotel road and, as I jumped in, I heard a shout. I
slammed the door shut and hit the central locking before pushing the key into
the ignition. My hands were sweating but I got the key home first time and
started the engine. I heard a thump as someone or something hit the car and I
hit the accelerator. I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw the two men
screaming at me.

I kept my foot down and horns went up around me before
I realised I was driving on the wrong side of the road. I came within inches of
front ending a Fiat 500. I swerved to the right and spent ten minutes losing
myself in the maze of streets before heading for the motorway that led to
Palma
.

I had no plan beyond getting the hell out of Inca and,
as I passed a Lidl supermarket I hit a roundabout that sat above the motorway.
I only had eyes for
Palma
and the plane home. But the flight was four days
away. Add to this that Dupree would have a watch put on the airport and I
changed my mind and took the motorway north to Alcudia and Puerto Pollensa.

I kept my foot as close to illegal as made no
difference - putting the miles between me and Inca. At the Puerto Pollensa
turnoff I slid off the motorway and turned left towards Pollenca and Puerto Pollensa.

Five miles along the road I pulled off onto a dirt
track. The light had long since gone and the adrenalin from the encounter had
turned sour. I found an open gate to a field and slid the car into the field.

I put my head back and dozed for an hour before waking
and pulling out my digital recorder to waffle for a while.

It’s time for bed and I have no plan for tomorrow.

I was woken this morning by an irate farmer leaning on
the horn of his tractor. He was sitting in the lane with a face like fizz. I got
my shit together and pulled out of the field and headed back for the main road.
With no better idea of what to do next I hung a right and pointed the car
towards Puerto Pollensa.

The road was quiet and my mind wandered as I sped
along. I hit a small industrial area and entered Puerto Pollensa via a
roundabout that had a
Fairview
yacht franchise on one corner and an Eronski
supermarket on the other. The town closed in around me and a few hundred yards
later I reached the sea front.

Puerto Pollensa is essentially a holiday destination
mixed in with a high number of ex Pats working their way to a funeral in the
sun. The town is small and compact. The centre is a small maze of three and
four storey canyons. I cruised around and exited the town onto what looked like
a new ring road. I followed it round the town and crossed where I had come in.
I kept going and dropped down to the beach front. 

The beach was quiet and well ordered - none of your Magaluf
or Palma Nova nonsense here. There are no towering hotel blocks lining the sea
front. In fact it is more akin to a quiet
US
gulf coast town than your typical Spanish resort of
old.

I parked the car across from the beach and got out. A
small wall separated the sand from the road and a tractor was towing a rake
behind it bringing order to the area. I sat on the wall and stared at the sea.

To my left a marina harboured a range of small yachts.
To my right the coast disappeared into the distance.

Puerto Pollensa sits in a small bay and I looked over
at the rocky promontory that formed the far side. Out on the bay a small
fishing boat was setting out for sea and I wished I was on it.

The idea of being on the boat took on merit as I
watched it carve a route through mirror calm waters. I could wait until Friday
and try and exit through
Palma
airport but the odds seemed stacked against that
being a trouble free journey. The alternative was staring me in the face.

Mallorca
is the
northern most island in the Balearics and there is clear sea between it and the
coast of
Spain
. Not only that but it lies less than
200 kilometres
from
Barcelona
. I
figured that there must be some traffic between the two. Not the commercial
ferry type - that might be being watched - but more the casual tourist type.
Surely someone in the marina might be heading for
Barcelona
at
this time of year.

Once in
Barcelona
I would head for Girona airport to the north. From
there to
Prestwick
Airport
in
Scotland
on a cheap Ryanair flight. That way I would exit
Mallorca
without going via
Palma
and enter
Scotland
without visiting
Glasgow
Airport
. At least I would give myself a chance to get home
without Dupree finding me.